Houston, Texas (June 4, 2019)
Over the last several years the global Power industry has undergone a transformation converting base load plants to ‘peaker’ units suppling incremental capacity during periods of higher demand. This conversion has driven the need for faster start-up, rigorous cycling, and a vast changes in plant operations and maintenance philosophy. The June 2019 issue of Power Magazine features an article titled Piloting Boiler Start-up at Lightspeed that discusses the challenges many plants face under these scenarios as they are forced to use equipment designed for steady base load operation in today’s fast start environments that are shocking their systems. Authors Matt Byers, Sr. Product Manager – Consolidated, and Hari Nair, Industry Director – Power, share their experiences working with end users to modify equipment to meet the rigorous demands of the boiler economizer applications under fast start-up scenarios.
“Each ASME B&PV Section I Safety valve is designed and certified to meet code requirements for pressure, temperature, and setpoint relief,” says Matt Byers, “but, current demands now add an additional variable to consider as combine cycle plants ramp at rates as high as 300 psi/sec. This daily event is outside the range that traditional safety valves were designed to handle.” This article discusses incremental design features applied to traditional safety valves that are required to minimize valve and system damage resulting from water hammer or chatter.
“Together with GE Power, Consolidated has been able to enhance our Economizer valve solutions to these applications through additional testing and performance validation.”, adds Hari Nair. “These industry operating challenges began to surface at the same time the ASME B&PV Section I code was modified in 2017 to allow pilot valves for use on section 1 Economizer applications. Together this fueled our product development pipeline, as we worked directly with many customers to find a solution.”
This article summarizes the available technology today, and how valve OEMs are set up to resolve these problems. BHGE and our local network of channel partner application specialist are readily available to help users specify equipment or system designs as needed. To find your local channel partner, please follow this link to our channel finder page.
Check out the new publication in June 2019 edition of Power Magazine.
For more information on BHGE Consolidated Valves and Pilot-Operated Safety Relief Valves, please visit our link below.
https://valves.bhge.com/consolidated
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